Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Tour de Cullman 2012

Saturday marked another great end of the season ride/race/party at the Tour de Cullman. The ride starts out as a motor-cycle led neutral social ride before we hit the start of the 18 mile race portion of the ride. It was fun meeting people and catching up on a year of bike racing. As you might imagine, the Lance Armstrong saga dominated a lot of the conversations going on during the ride.

Once we made it to Co Rd 26, the green flag was dropped and Philip Thompson set the early pace at the front. We got into a short rotation before making the left onto Co Rd 11 where the race really gets started with a steep 1K, 9% average 15% max wall. Boris lifted the pace at the front causing the group to explode. Only Stuart Lamp, Darrell O’Quinn, and I were able to keep up with Boris across the top.

Shortly before the next intersection, Stuart came off the pace. Darrell hung tough through the rollers before another surge by Boris saw the lead group whittled down to just me and him. We worked together well through the steep rollers heading downhill towards the Warrior River. But it was no holds barred once we turned right onto the final 4 mile skyball climb. We set a pretty good pace up the climb with not quite as strong a headwind this year. Then when we hit the always steep Fat Dunn road, I surged and Boris couldn’t quite hold my wheel. I turned on the gas even more as we hit the dirt and eventually extended that lead out to 1 minute by the end. I was able to get this video of Boris coming in for 2nd:

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One thought on “Tour de Cullman 2012”

The fastest ascent up Skyball? Well done Professor! Tria has six consecutive and you have the last four. Tria and you have been great together. Thanks for penning the history and much success on your new colors.